David Seidler, the London-born playwright and screenwriter best known for “The King’s Speech,” has died while on a fly-fishing vacation in New Zealand, as per a report in The Guardian. His spokesperson said he was in the location he most revered, doing the activity he most loved when he passed: “It is exactly as he would have scripted it.” The winner of the Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay for the Colin Firth-led film was 86 years old.
Seidler’s career began in Australian television in the late 1960s. He came to the United States in the early 1980s, working for the soap opera “Another World,” then writing television movies like “Malice in Wonderland,” something of an early version of the series “Feud” as it concerned Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons starring Jane Alexander and Elizabeth Taylor. He also wrote “Onassis: The Richest Man in the World” starring...
Seidler’s career began in Australian television in the late 1960s. He came to the United States in the early 1980s, working for the soap opera “Another World,” then writing television movies like “Malice in Wonderland,” something of an early version of the series “Feud” as it concerned Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons starring Jane Alexander and Elizabeth Taylor. He also wrote “Onassis: The Richest Man in the World” starring...
- 3/18/2024
- by Jordan Hoffman
- Gold Derby
A documentary series about Elizabeth Taylor is in the works at the BBC, with Kim Kardashian among the producers.
Elizabeth Taylor is undoubtedly one of the most iconic film stars of her era. By the mid 1960s, she was the highest paid film star in the world.
There have been copious books written and films made about the star too – Taylor has been portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter, Lindsay Lohan, Sherilyn Fenn and Louella Parsons among others; a biopic called A Special Relationship starring Rachel Weisz and written by Simon Beaufoy was announced in 2019, but there has been no news since then.
Now though, the BBC has commissioned a three part documentary, Elizabeth Taylor: Rebel Superstar, which will be executive produced by Kim Kardashian, Kari Lia and Hamish Fergusson.
The description of the documentary reads as follows:
The series will take a deep dive into Taylor’s craft and technique...
Elizabeth Taylor is undoubtedly one of the most iconic film stars of her era. By the mid 1960s, she was the highest paid film star in the world.
There have been copious books written and films made about the star too – Taylor has been portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter, Lindsay Lohan, Sherilyn Fenn and Louella Parsons among others; a biopic called A Special Relationship starring Rachel Weisz and written by Simon Beaufoy was announced in 2019, but there has been no news since then.
Now though, the BBC has commissioned a three part documentary, Elizabeth Taylor: Rebel Superstar, which will be executive produced by Kim Kardashian, Kari Lia and Hamish Fergusson.
The description of the documentary reads as follows:
The series will take a deep dive into Taylor’s craft and technique...
- 1/30/2024
- by Jake Godfrey
- Film Stories
Medusa Deluxe is a genre-bending movie written and directed by Thomas Hardiman. The A24 film shows us a murder mystery set in a competitive hairdressing contest. Medusa Deluxe is a very visual film with some brilliant performances by Clare Perkins, Anita-Joy Uwajeh, Kayla Meikle, Kae Alexander, and Harriet Webb. So, if you loved Medusa Deluxe here are some similar movies you should check out next.
Clue (Prime Video & MGM+) Credit – Paramount Pictures
Synopsis: Here is the murderously funny movie based on the world-famous Clue board game. Was it Colonel Mustard in the study with a gun? Miss Scarlet in the billiard room with the rope? Or was it Wadsworth the butler? Meet all the notorious suspects and discover all their foul play things. You’ll love their dastardly doings as the bodies and the laughs pile up before your eyes.
The Cat’s Meow (Prime Video) Credit – Lions Gate Films
Synopsis:...
Clue (Prime Video & MGM+) Credit – Paramount Pictures
Synopsis: Here is the murderously funny movie based on the world-famous Clue board game. Was it Colonel Mustard in the study with a gun? Miss Scarlet in the billiard room with the rope? Or was it Wadsworth the butler? Meet all the notorious suspects and discover all their foul play things. You’ll love their dastardly doings as the bodies and the laughs pile up before your eyes.
The Cat’s Meow (Prime Video) Credit – Lions Gate Films
Synopsis:...
- 8/23/2023
- by Kulwant Singh
- Cinema Blind
James Fitzgerald, a Hollywood publicist and manager who represented his wives Jane Powell and Erin O’Brien as well as Rock Hudson, Louella Parsons, Chuck Connors and Howard Keel, has died. He was 91.
Fitzgerald died Sunday of natural causes at an assisted living facility in Canoga Park, his son Greg Fitzgerald told The Hollywood Reporter.
Fitzgerald also assisted the careers of John Raitt, Engelbert Humperdinck, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jimmy Van Heusen and The Burgundy Street Singers, among others. And when he was promoting the Sammy Cahn song “High Hopes” — a big hit for Frank Sinatra that won an Oscar in 1960 — he got to meet Eleanor Roosevelt, who performed the lyrics during an interview with him, as she did here.
Fitzgerald was married to singer-actress O’Brien (77 Sunset Strip, Onionhead) from 1951 until their 1963 divorce and to Seven Brides for Seven Brothers standout Powell from 1965 until their 1975 divorce (he was the third...
Fitzgerald died Sunday of natural causes at an assisted living facility in Canoga Park, his son Greg Fitzgerald told The Hollywood Reporter.
Fitzgerald also assisted the careers of John Raitt, Engelbert Humperdinck, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jimmy Van Heusen and The Burgundy Street Singers, among others. And when he was promoting the Sammy Cahn song “High Hopes” — a big hit for Frank Sinatra that won an Oscar in 1960 — he got to meet Eleanor Roosevelt, who performed the lyrics during an interview with him, as she did here.
Fitzgerald was married to singer-actress O’Brien (77 Sunset Strip, Onionhead) from 1951 until their 1963 divorce and to Seven Brides for Seven Brothers standout Powell from 1965 until their 1975 divorce (he was the third...
- 8/21/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Los Angeles native Karina Longworth has long ridden the swells of writing about Hollywood, whether as a cofounder of film blog Cinematical and contributor to Spout, critic and film editor at LA Weekly, author, or creator of the popular nine-year-old “You Must Remember This” podcast. Over the years, Longworth’s memorable series include in-depth explorations of Charles Manson; Joan Crawford; Jane Fonda and Jean Seberg; Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr.; gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons; and Polly Platt and Peter Bogdanovich (which is being developed as a TV series).
It may seem like fans of the Patreon podcast have to wait long stretches between seasons. But Longworth and an assistant invest months of research and writing into podcast series such as the “Erotic 80s” (ten episodes) and the just-released “Erotic 90s” (Part One is 14 episodes; Part Two debuts in the fall), which indulge in a depth no...
It may seem like fans of the Patreon podcast have to wait long stretches between seasons. But Longworth and an assistant invest months of research and writing into podcast series such as the “Erotic 80s” (ten episodes) and the just-released “Erotic 90s” (Part One is 14 episodes; Part Two debuts in the fall), which indulge in a depth no...
- 4/11/2023
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
It was the evening of February 29, 1940. The 12th Annual Academy Awards were scheduled to be held at the famed Cocoanut Grove nightclub in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, the same facility where Robert Kennedy would be assassinated some 28 years later. But on this night, a different sort of history would be made. Hattie McDaniel, the actress who starred as Mammy, the head slave at the fictional Southern plantation Tara in the Civil War epic “Gone with the Wind,” would accept an Oscar for supporting actress. In the process, she would become the first African American performer to be so honored.
Yet despite the undeniable progress inherent in McDaniel’s triumph, that night 83 years ago was rife with racist and humiliating overtones for McDaniel, the daughter of two former slaves. It began with her being barred from the “Gone with the Wind” world premiere on December 15, 1939 at the Loew’s...
Yet despite the undeniable progress inherent in McDaniel’s triumph, that night 83 years ago was rife with racist and humiliating overtones for McDaniel, the daughter of two former slaves. It began with her being barred from the “Gone with the Wind” world premiere on December 15, 1939 at the Loew’s...
- 2/15/2023
- by Ray Richmond
- Gold Derby
Writer-director Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” is the sort of maximalist movie where every frame teems with excess, so it’s only fitting that its costumes be outrageous in both their number and designs. Between the cast of over a hundred speaking roles and the abundance of extras, costume designer Mary Zophres estimates that she and her department created around 7,000 costumes, which is even more impressive when one considers the meticulous detail that went into every piece of clothing. Nowhere did this approach pay more dividends — both in glamour and character development — than with Jean Smart’s brutally honest gossip columnist Elinor St. John. A close look at her costumes reveals the thought and care that, when multiplied by hundreds of cast members, made “Babylon” the most sartorially spectacular film of 2022 and Zophres an Oscar nominee for best costume design.
“People don’t realize how important costumes are to creating a character,...
“People don’t realize how important costumes are to creating a character,...
- 2/14/2023
- by Jim Hemphill
- Indiewire
Jim Mahoney was one of Hollywood’s go-to guys. He spent 60+ years in public relations, guiding the images of Clark Gable, Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen, Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Christie Brinkley, Peggy Lee, and hundreds more.
He was on the front lines when Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped, and was at the party at Peter Lawford’s house the night Marilyn Monroe died. He was also there with the Rat Pack in Las Vegas.
Now age 95, Mahoney has captured all of that in a memoir, Get Mahoney!: A Hollywood Insider’s Memoir. “Get Mahoney!” was the phrase often used when stars and their handlers knew trouble was brewing and needed to keep their names out of the press. Mahoney was good at his job, and frequently referred to himself as a better “suppress” agent than press agent.
“It was about ‘taming the lion’ – both the press and the clients themselves,...
He was on the front lines when Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped, and was at the party at Peter Lawford’s house the night Marilyn Monroe died. He was also there with the Rat Pack in Las Vegas.
Now age 95, Mahoney has captured all of that in a memoir, Get Mahoney!: A Hollywood Insider’s Memoir. “Get Mahoney!” was the phrase often used when stars and their handlers knew trouble was brewing and needed to keep their names out of the press. Mahoney was good at his job, and frequently referred to himself as a better “suppress” agent than press agent.
“It was about ‘taming the lion’ – both the press and the clients themselves,...
- 2/4/2023
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
Click here to read the full article.
When Blanche Sweet sang “there’s a tear for every smile in Hollywood” in Show Girl in Hollywood (1930), she wasn’t wrong. Movie people have long been warning starry eyed wannabes to tread carefully if there were coming to Tinseltown full of hopes and dreams. In The Truth About the Movies by the Stars (1924), screenwriter Frank Butler wrote that “From every corner of the earth they come and across the Seven Seas – borne on the tireless wings of youthful optimism. Pathetic pilgrims these, struggling on to ultimate disillusion.”
A large part of Damien Chazelle’s Babylon (2022) explores the dark side of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The twenties roared in Hollywood, but there was also something larger at stake for characters in Babylon. Like any audience in front of a film, they were chasing that magic on the screen. They were chasing an idea.
When Blanche Sweet sang “there’s a tear for every smile in Hollywood” in Show Girl in Hollywood (1930), she wasn’t wrong. Movie people have long been warning starry eyed wannabes to tread carefully if there were coming to Tinseltown full of hopes and dreams. In The Truth About the Movies by the Stars (1924), screenwriter Frank Butler wrote that “From every corner of the earth they come and across the Seven Seas – borne on the tireless wings of youthful optimism. Pathetic pilgrims these, struggling on to ultimate disillusion.”
A large part of Damien Chazelle’s Babylon (2022) explores the dark side of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The twenties roared in Hollywood, but there was also something larger at stake for characters in Babylon. Like any audience in front of a film, they were chasing that magic on the screen. They were chasing an idea.
- 12/23/2022
- by Chris Yogerst
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Click here to read the full article.
Director Damien Chazelle’s mandate to his costume designer on Babylon was simple: “I don’t want this to look like another ’20s movie.”
That edict translated into no flapper dresses, no cloche hats (on the principals) and no feathered headbands in the Paramount film, set to hit theaters Dec. 23. As the movie’s three-time Oscar-nominated costume designer, Mary Zophres, notes, “Damien wanted authenticity but didn’t want it to be a trope; he was like, ‘Bring me fresh ideas!’ ” Creating costumes for the epic about Hollywood debauchery and decadence during the late 1920s was a larger-than-life game of numbers where Zophres and her team built close to 10,000 costumes, ranging from items for a Singin’ in the Rain number to a nod to 1916’s Intolerance battle scene.
Costumes for each of the principal characters were designed with a muse in mind, representing the highs and lows of Hollywood.
Director Damien Chazelle’s mandate to his costume designer on Babylon was simple: “I don’t want this to look like another ’20s movie.”
That edict translated into no flapper dresses, no cloche hats (on the principals) and no feathered headbands in the Paramount film, set to hit theaters Dec. 23. As the movie’s three-time Oscar-nominated costume designer, Mary Zophres, notes, “Damien wanted authenticity but didn’t want it to be a trope; he was like, ‘Bring me fresh ideas!’ ” Creating costumes for the epic about Hollywood debauchery and decadence during the late 1920s was a larger-than-life game of numbers where Zophres and her team built close to 10,000 costumes, ranging from items for a Singin’ in the Rain number to a nod to 1916’s Intolerance battle scene.
Costumes for each of the principal characters were designed with a muse in mind, representing the highs and lows of Hollywood.
- 12/22/2022
- by Cathy Whitlock
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Click here to read the full article.
When the dizzying trailer for Babylon dropped, its coke-fueled bacchanal of sex, partying, moviemaking and sleaze sold it as The Day of the Locust meets The Wolf of Wall Street. Marketing can be deceptive, but in this case, turns out that’s an accurate taste of what the whopping three hours and change of Damien Chazelle’s poison-pen letter to 1920s and ‘30s Hollywood delivers, with the freewheeling storytelling of Boogie Nights and a sticky dollop of Lynchian creepiness. No doubt plenty of cool kids will eagerly sign up to be pummeled by the film’s crazed excesses, though just as many will find it exhausting and sour. Even its technical virtuosity feels assaultive.
To all the folks who stomped out any chance of Chazelle’s soulful space-travel drama, First Man, finding an audience by whipping up a fake controversy charging that it was unpatriotic,...
When the dizzying trailer for Babylon dropped, its coke-fueled bacchanal of sex, partying, moviemaking and sleaze sold it as The Day of the Locust meets The Wolf of Wall Street. Marketing can be deceptive, but in this case, turns out that’s an accurate taste of what the whopping three hours and change of Damien Chazelle’s poison-pen letter to 1920s and ‘30s Hollywood delivers, with the freewheeling storytelling of Boogie Nights and a sticky dollop of Lynchian creepiness. No doubt plenty of cool kids will eagerly sign up to be pummeled by the film’s crazed excesses, though just as many will find it exhausting and sour. Even its technical virtuosity feels assaultive.
To all the folks who stomped out any chance of Chazelle’s soulful space-travel drama, First Man, finding an audience by whipping up a fake controversy charging that it was unpatriotic,...
- 12/16/2022
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Damien Chazelle’s manic vision of a wild, wild west Hollywood heyday, “Babylon,” screened for the very first time November 14 in Los Angeles for Academy members and select press. The collective reaction in a packed, mostly enthusiastic house was, “That was a lot of movie.” Responses on Twitter (social reactions were encouraged while reviews remain under embargo ahead of the film’s wide Christmas Day release) from the press corps ranged from marveling over the film’s druggy over-the-topness to bewilderment over its wildly swinging tones. See them rounded up below.
Indeed, set in a debaucherous mid-1920s when Los Angeles was still a half-formed desert town, “Babylon” is essentially a three-hour-plus bender of a movie that pummels the audience with Boschian-level set pieces of Jazz Era decadence — mountains of cocaine, graphic overdoses, scatological humor, projectile vomiting, horror-movie-style sex dungeons, murder, suicide, and rattlesnake wrestling. Other than breakout Diego Calva,...
Indeed, set in a debaucherous mid-1920s when Los Angeles was still a half-formed desert town, “Babylon” is essentially a three-hour-plus bender of a movie that pummels the audience with Boschian-level set pieces of Jazz Era decadence — mountains of cocaine, graphic overdoses, scatological humor, projectile vomiting, horror-movie-style sex dungeons, murder, suicide, and rattlesnake wrestling. Other than breakout Diego Calva,...
- 11/15/2022
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Hollywood history podcast “You Must Remember This,” hosted by generously insightful historian and movie expert Karina Longworth, is set to dive into erotic films of the 1980s and 1990s, with a two-part season premiering April 5.
While juicy recent seasons have focused on Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin, gossip columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, and the life and forgotten-by-many career of producer and production designer Polly Platt, Longworth is taking on more recent cinematic history for her next outing.
The upcoming “You Must Remember This” season will be split into two parts, with “Erotic 80s” debuting on April 5, and “Erotic 90s” set to premiere in the fall. Episodes will focus on genres including erotic thrillers, body horrors, neo-noirs, and sex comedies, and will also trace the fallout of the Motion Picture Production Code, as well as the rise of X-rated movies. As always, new episodes will debut on Tuesdays.
While juicy recent seasons have focused on Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin, gossip columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, and the life and forgotten-by-many career of producer and production designer Polly Platt, Longworth is taking on more recent cinematic history for her next outing.
The upcoming “You Must Remember This” season will be split into two parts, with “Erotic 80s” debuting on April 5, and “Erotic 90s” set to premiere in the fall. Episodes will focus on genres including erotic thrillers, body horrors, neo-noirs, and sex comedies, and will also trace the fallout of the Motion Picture Production Code, as well as the rise of X-rated movies. As always, new episodes will debut on Tuesdays.
- 3/9/2022
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
It is staggering to think that Sophia Loren has been making movies for 70 years, initially appearing uncredited in such films as 1950’s “Tototarzan” and “Quo Vadis” before becoming a full-fledged star in mentor Vittorio De Sica’s 1954 comedy anthology “The Gold of Naples.” And she became the first performer to win an Oscar for a foreign language film for De Sica’s harrowing World War II drama “Two Women,” which opened in the U.S. in 1961. She received two more Oscar nominations for Italian productions: DeSica’s “Marriage Italian Style” and Ettore Scala’s 1977 “A Special Day.”
After a decade’s hiatus from features, Loren has made a triumphant return to film in her son Edoardo Ponti’s poignant “The Life Ahead,” currently streaming on Netflix. The 86-year-old actress has received some of the strongest reviews of her career and loud Oscar buzz for her performance as an aged prostitute...
After a decade’s hiatus from features, Loren has made a triumphant return to film in her son Edoardo Ponti’s poignant “The Life Ahead,” currently streaming on Netflix. The 86-year-old actress has received some of the strongest reviews of her career and loud Oscar buzz for her performance as an aged prostitute...
- 12/4/2020
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Movies about the making of movies rarely find an audience. That long-standing Hollywood dictum will be defied this weekend with the Netflix release of Mank, but here’s the rub: The central character is a critic who becomes a screenwriter who becomes a victim.
That may be a clue as to why Mank this week is receiving reviews somewhere between worshipful and orgasmic. Mank is the perfect tonic for film critics who have few movies to review and no festivals or award shows around to herald their “raves.”
None of is this to deny that Mank represents an exercise in film artistry, as well as in good timing. Consider its backstory: Orson Welles arrived in Hollywood in the pit of the 1930s Depression as a self-avowed young genius aspiring to make a movie about a billionaire, William Randolph Hearst.
The studios were not thrilled about Citizen Kane. MGM had just...
That may be a clue as to why Mank this week is receiving reviews somewhere between worshipful and orgasmic. Mank is the perfect tonic for film critics who have few movies to review and no festivals or award shows around to herald their “raves.”
None of is this to deny that Mank represents an exercise in film artistry, as well as in good timing. Consider its backstory: Orson Welles arrived in Hollywood in the pit of the 1930s Depression as a self-avowed young genius aspiring to make a movie about a billionaire, William Randolph Hearst.
The studios were not thrilled about Citizen Kane. MGM had just...
- 11/12/2020
- by Peter Bart
- Deadline Film + TV
Claude Heater, the famed opera singer who appeared with his face unseen as Jesus Christ in William Wyler's epic 1959 production of Ben-Hur, has died. He was 92.
A noted Wagnerian tenor, Heater died May 28 at St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco of natural causes after a long illness, according to an announcement on his foundation website.
While performing in Rome, Heater was spotted by Ben-Hur production manager Henry Henigson, who was struck by the singer's "magnificent" voice and "beautiful spiritual face," Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons wrote in 1958.
Heater was then tested ...
A noted Wagnerian tenor, Heater died May 28 at St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco of natural causes after a long illness, according to an announcement on his foundation website.
While performing in Rome, Heater was spotted by Ben-Hur production manager Henry Henigson, who was struck by the singer's "magnificent" voice and "beautiful spiritual face," Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons wrote in 1958.
Heater was then tested ...
Claude Heater, the famed opera singer who appeared with his face unseen as Jesus Christ in William Wyler's epic 1959 production of Ben-Hur, has died. He was 92.
A noted Wagnerian tenor, Heater died May 28 at St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco of natural causes after a long illness, according to an announcement on his foundation website.
While performing in Rome, Heater was spotted by Ben-Hur production manager Henry Henigson, who was struck by the singer's "magnificent" voice and "beautiful spiritual face," Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons wrote in 1958.
Heater was then tested ...
A noted Wagnerian tenor, Heater died May 28 at St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco of natural causes after a long illness, according to an announcement on his foundation website.
While performing in Rome, Heater was spotted by Ben-Hur production manager Henry Henigson, who was struck by the singer's "magnificent" voice and "beautiful spiritual face," Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons wrote in 1958.
Heater was then tested ...
Why Are The Oscars Called “Oscars”?
Ever wonder why the Academy Awards are called the Oscars? Like most narratives in Hollywood, it’s a story lost to lore. The name credit primarily has been given to three assignors: Academy librarian Margaret Herrick, journalist Sidney Skolsky, and actress Bette Davis. The Academy officially adopted the nickname in 1939 making Oscar part of history.
Oscar was originally called the much more formal “The Academy Award of Merit,” which doesn’t quite have the personality that “Oscar” does. One of the academy’s founding members, MGM art director Cedric Gibbons, designed the original statuette: a sword-wielding crusader for the arts, standing on a film reel. He would go on to garner twenty-eight nominations and take home eleven awards. His collaborator, sculptor George Stanley reportedly modeled the statue after a Mexican model and actor Emilio “El Indio” Fernández.
Upon seeing the bronze and gold image...
Ever wonder why the Academy Awards are called the Oscars? Like most narratives in Hollywood, it’s a story lost to lore. The name credit primarily has been given to three assignors: Academy librarian Margaret Herrick, journalist Sidney Skolsky, and actress Bette Davis. The Academy officially adopted the nickname in 1939 making Oscar part of history.
Oscar was originally called the much more formal “The Academy Award of Merit,” which doesn’t quite have the personality that “Oscar” does. One of the academy’s founding members, MGM art director Cedric Gibbons, designed the original statuette: a sword-wielding crusader for the arts, standing on a film reel. He would go on to garner twenty-eight nominations and take home eleven awards. His collaborator, sculptor George Stanley reportedly modeled the statue after a Mexican model and actor Emilio “El Indio” Fernández.
Upon seeing the bronze and gold image...
- 10/9/2019
- by John Matsuya
- Gold Derby
Previous recipients include Ken Loach, Werner Herzog and Agnès Varda.
Us filmmaker John Waters will receive the honorary Pardo d’onore Manor lifetime achievement award at the 72nd Locarno Film Festival this year (August 7-17).
Waters will accept the award in a special ceremony in Locarno’s Piazza Grande on August 16.
The Baltimore native has been a director for more than fifty years, making his first short film Hag In A Black Leather Jacket in 1964 and his first feature Mondo Trasho in 1969. He is renowned for embracing an irreverent style in films such as Pink Flamingos (1972), Female Trouble (1974) and Desperate Living (1977).
Waters’ 2000 feature Cecil B.
Us filmmaker John Waters will receive the honorary Pardo d’onore Manor lifetime achievement award at the 72nd Locarno Film Festival this year (August 7-17).
Waters will accept the award in a special ceremony in Locarno’s Piazza Grande on August 16.
The Baltimore native has been a director for more than fifty years, making his first short film Hag In A Black Leather Jacket in 1964 and his first feature Mondo Trasho in 1969. He is renowned for embracing an irreverent style in films such as Pink Flamingos (1972), Female Trouble (1974) and Desperate Living (1977).
Waters’ 2000 feature Cecil B.
- 4/9/2019
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Following in the footsteps of trailblazing publicity hound Carl Denham, William Castle learned that if you can’t bring your audience to the sideshow, bring the sideshow to them – the 3D craze of the 50’s allowed him to do just that.
After toying with the format in 1953’s Fort Ti and 1954’s Jesse James vs. the Daltons, the adventurous director upped the ante with even more extravagant promotional stunts for his late 50’s thrillers Macabre and House on Haunted Hill. Even the vinegary gossip columnist Louella Parsons had kind words for Haunted Hill and with its success Castle suddenly found himself spending more time on gimmicks than coherent story lines.
The first four films from that cockeyed era are collected in William Castle at Columbia – Volume One – a Blu ray set from the UK’s ever-reliable Indicator featuring some of the most memorably peculiar entertainments to ever confound and delight the neighborhood bijou.
After toying with the format in 1953’s Fort Ti and 1954’s Jesse James vs. the Daltons, the adventurous director upped the ante with even more extravagant promotional stunts for his late 50’s thrillers Macabre and House on Haunted Hill. Even the vinegary gossip columnist Louella Parsons had kind words for Haunted Hill and with its success Castle suddenly found himself spending more time on gimmicks than coherent story lines.
The first four films from that cockeyed era are collected in William Castle at Columbia – Volume One – a Blu ray set from the UK’s ever-reliable Indicator featuring some of the most memorably peculiar entertainments to ever confound and delight the neighborhood bijou.
- 10/27/2018
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Between the horrors of the Baby Jane shoot, Joan’s Oscar-night stunt, and her and Bette’s natural antipathy, you would think that the last thing either of them would ever do would be team up again. But desperate times call for desperate measures. So, with the mortal enemies’ stars fading down to mere flickers, Sunday’s Feud: Bette and Joan found Davis and Crawford signing on to headline Bob’s new thriller, What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte? How did it go? As if you don’t already know the legend, read on…
RelatedFeud Season 2 to Focus on Charles...
RelatedFeud Season 2 to Focus on Charles...
- 4/10/2017
- TVLine.com
Let's get this out of the way. If any young actress is stupid enough to walk up to a legendary actress and ask for her autograph on behalf of her grandmother for goodness sakes, that little chickie deserves to be blackballed right out of the industry.
That was an affront against Joan Crawford on Feud: Bette and Joan Season 1 Episode 2 that allowed for just a hint of friendship to blossom between Joan and Bette Davis.
If the men in their lives didn't have problems with their self-confidence, history could have ruled for Bette and Joan. They were very close to making things right.
Unfortunately, it was too easy to take the already diminished egos of the leading ladies and curtail them even further.
As Joan Blondell and Olivia de Havilland were chatting about in their 'documentary' scenes, women were always pitted against each other, because the business didn't like when they were friends.
That was an affront against Joan Crawford on Feud: Bette and Joan Season 1 Episode 2 that allowed for just a hint of friendship to blossom between Joan and Bette Davis.
If the men in their lives didn't have problems with their self-confidence, history could have ruled for Bette and Joan. They were very close to making things right.
Unfortunately, it was too easy to take the already diminished egos of the leading ladies and curtail them even further.
As Joan Blondell and Olivia de Havilland were chatting about in their 'documentary' scenes, women were always pitted against each other, because the business didn't like when they were friends.
- 3/13/2017
- by Carissa Pavlica
- TVfanatic
In Sunday’s Feud: Bette and Joan, Davis and Crawford did the unthinkable and called a truce. The end.
No, obviously, that wasn’t the end. In fact, the cease-fire only lasted about as long as it took either actress to finish off a vodka rocks. What brought the curtain down on the Baby Jane co-stars’ detente? Read on…
RelatedFeud Season 2 to Focus on Charles and Diana’s Royal Estrangement
‘Pack The Bags Of The Girl Next Door’ | As “The Other Woman” began, Joan noticed that the ingenue who’d been cast as the Hudson sisters’ neighbor was turning heads on the set.
No, obviously, that wasn’t the end. In fact, the cease-fire only lasted about as long as it took either actress to finish off a vodka rocks. What brought the curtain down on the Baby Jane co-stars’ detente? Read on…
RelatedFeud Season 2 to Focus on Charles and Diana’s Royal Estrangement
‘Pack The Bags Of The Girl Next Door’ | As “The Other Woman” began, Joan noticed that the ingenue who’d been cast as the Hudson sisters’ neighbor was turning heads on the set.
- 3/13/2017
- TVLine.com
The great rule of thumb when working with the Coens, the actor says, is whether you can hear them guffawing like donkeys in the background
Tilda Swinton is on her second Coen brothers film, after Burn After Reading: here she plays the small but toothsome role of identical twin sisters Thora and Thessaly Thacker, feuding Hollywood gossip columnists of the Hedda Hopper/Louella Parsons variety. Typically for such an idiosyncratic acting intelligence, Swinton has her own ideas on the characters, which aren’t to be found anywhere in the actual script. The Thackers, she theorises, with their neurotic needling and ferocious competitiveness, must be failed actors themselves, the product of stage schools that didn’t make it, and are now compensating by rechannelling their frustrated energies into journalism.
Related: Hail, Caesar! review – George Clooney bigger, broader, zanier in classic Coen caper
Continue reading...
Tilda Swinton is on her second Coen brothers film, after Burn After Reading: here she plays the small but toothsome role of identical twin sisters Thora and Thessaly Thacker, feuding Hollywood gossip columnists of the Hedda Hopper/Louella Parsons variety. Typically for such an idiosyncratic acting intelligence, Swinton has her own ideas on the characters, which aren’t to be found anywhere in the actual script. The Thackers, she theorises, with their neurotic needling and ferocious competitiveness, must be failed actors themselves, the product of stage schools that didn’t make it, and are now compensating by rechannelling their frustrated energies into journalism.
Related: Hail, Caesar! review – George Clooney bigger, broader, zanier in classic Coen caper
Continue reading...
- 3/3/2016
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
What happened to Hattie McDaniel's Oscar award? After McDaniel died from breast cancer in 1952 at the age of 57, the award was supposed to be donated to Howard University, per her will. The university, however, has no official record of it ever being received. McDaniel beat costar Olivia de Havilland to win Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Scarlett O'Hara's maid Mammy in the 1939 Civil War epic Gone with the Wind. So what happened then to that historic Oscar after McDaniel's death? While Howard can't confirm it ever passed through, it's possible, if not likely, that the university received the award,...
- 2/27/2016
- by Chancellor Agard, @chancelloragard
- PEOPLE.com
Sign of the Cross: The Coen Bros. Revisit the Backlot Desires of Hollywood’s Golden Era
The Coen Bros., back with their first title since 2013’s Cannes darling Inside Llewyn Davis, step back to an even earlier era with Hail, Caesar!, a 1950s set allegory parallelizing movie studio heads with their supernatural equivalent—God. A rather stressful day unfolds on the backlot of Capitol Pictures, where a leading star currently set to film the final, important speech in a Biblical epic is kidnapped by a serene group of Communist writers. Meanwhile, the general cadre of hungry gossip columnists, disgruntled auteurs, and budding celebrities must be continuously juggled and groomed by the studio’s omnipotent figurehead. It’s an ideal environment for the duo, who seem to be consistently recapitulating earlier films and eras, like their rehash of True Grit (2010). There’s something about this latest effort which hints at the...
The Coen Bros., back with their first title since 2013’s Cannes darling Inside Llewyn Davis, step back to an even earlier era with Hail, Caesar!, a 1950s set allegory parallelizing movie studio heads with their supernatural equivalent—God. A rather stressful day unfolds on the backlot of Capitol Pictures, where a leading star currently set to film the final, important speech in a Biblical epic is kidnapped by a serene group of Communist writers. Meanwhile, the general cadre of hungry gossip columnists, disgruntled auteurs, and budding celebrities must be continuously juggled and groomed by the studio’s omnipotent figurehead. It’s an ideal environment for the duo, who seem to be consistently recapitulating earlier films and eras, like their rehash of True Grit (2010). There’s something about this latest effort which hints at the...
- 2/5/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Ramon Novarro: 'Ben-Hur' 1925 star. 'Ben-Hur' on TCM: Ramon Novarro in most satisfying version of the semi-biblical epic Christmas 2015 is just around the corner. That's surely the reason Turner Classic Movies presented Fred Niblo's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ last night, Dec. 20, '15, featuring Carl Davis' magnificent score. Starring Ramon Novarro, the 1925 version of Ben-Hur became not only the most expensive movie production,[1] but also the biggest worldwide box office hit up to that time.[2] Equally important, that was probably the first instance when the international market came to the rescue of a Hollywood mega-production,[3] saving not only Ben-Hur from a fate worse than getting trampled by a runaway chariot, but also the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which could have been financially strangled at birth had the epic based on Gen. Lew Wallace's bestseller been a commercial bomb. The convoluted making of 'Ben-Hur,' as described...
- 12/21/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Teresa Wright and Matt Damon in 'The Rainmaker' Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright vs. Samuel Goldwyn: Nasty Falling Out.") "I'd rather have luck than brains!" Teresa Wright was quoted as saying in the early 1950s. That's understandable, considering her post-Samuel Goldwyn choice of movie roles, some of which may have seemed promising on paper.[1] Wright was Marlon Brando's first Hollywood leading lady, but that didn't help her to bounce back following the very public spat with her former boss. After all, The Men was released before Elia Kazan's film version of A Streetcar Named Desire turned Brando into a major international star. Chances are that good film offers were scarce. After Wright's brief 1950 comeback, for the third time in less than a decade she would be gone from the big screen for more than a year.
- 3/11/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Beautiful Creatures may not have rocketed him into the Ya franchise hall of fame, but Alden Ehrenreich has been finding plenty of work regardless. Woody Allen hired him for Blue Jasmine and he’s currently in talks to join the star-studded ensemble lining up for Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest, Hail Caesar!.The film, which already boasts Coen veterans George Clooney and Josh Brolin alongside Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum, Scarlett Johansson, Jonah Hill and Ralph Fiennes, revolves around a 1950's private eye/fixer who tracks down and covers up scandals for studios to keep the stars in line.Fiennes will be a director under contract to one of the studios, while Tatum is a Gene Kelly-type star. Swinton, meanwhile, will be on the other side of the studio gates, hunting for juicy stories as a gossip columnist, presumably along the Louella Parsons or Hedda Hopper lines. So far,...
- 9/2/2014
- EmpireOnline
The Coen brothers can certainly pick their ensembles. Their latest, period Hollywood comedy Hail Caesar!, is a prime example of their casting prowess at work. The eclectic trio of Channing Tatum, Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes are all in negotiations to join the cast.Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest pokes into the world of Hollywood fixers and private eyes, who dug up dirt and kept stars in line during the 1950s. Eddie Mannix is our (anti?)hero, working for the studios to make sure no sleazy stories break around the actors in their movies. The film already boasts Coen veterans George Clooney and Josh Brolin.Tatum, whose has worked with a variety of great directors as his career surged in the last few years, appears to be continuing his run. He’s on to play a Gene Kelly-type, while Fiennes would play Laurence Lorenz, a salaried studio director.
- 6/24/2014
- EmpireOnline
The Lady from Shanghai
Written and directed by Orson Welles
USA, 1947
Long before the likes of Brangelina dominated the Hollywood gossip columns, figures such as Hedda Hooper and Louella Parsons were the all-powerful industry matriarchs whose withering wit could make or break film careers. The tumultuous romance between Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth on the set of The Lady from Shanghai, which has received a BFI funded restoration for this year’s London Film Festival, was the fodder of scandal-drenched periodicals around the globe in those postwar years. The main difference between Shanghai and something like 2005′s Mr. & Mrs. Smith is that the former film endures as a curious classic beyond the fading celebrity chatter, with subsequent analysis identifying the movie as either Welles’ strychnine-poisoned valentine to Hayworth or a gloomy paean to a remorse-fueled marriage. Either way, it’s a curiously ambivalent and fractured piece that inverts and perverts the traditional trappings of noir,...
Written and directed by Orson Welles
USA, 1947
Long before the likes of Brangelina dominated the Hollywood gossip columns, figures such as Hedda Hooper and Louella Parsons were the all-powerful industry matriarchs whose withering wit could make or break film careers. The tumultuous romance between Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth on the set of The Lady from Shanghai, which has received a BFI funded restoration for this year’s London Film Festival, was the fodder of scandal-drenched periodicals around the globe in those postwar years. The main difference between Shanghai and something like 2005′s Mr. & Mrs. Smith is that the former film endures as a curious classic beyond the fading celebrity chatter, with subsequent analysis identifying the movie as either Welles’ strychnine-poisoned valentine to Hayworth or a gloomy paean to a remorse-fueled marriage. Either way, it’s a curiously ambivalent and fractured piece that inverts and perverts the traditional trappings of noir,...
- 10/17/2013
- by John
- SoundOnSight
Taciturn hero of film and television westerns
In Hollywood, in the days when men were men, Dale Robertson, who has died aged 89, was considered the epitome of masculinity. In the Clarion Call episode from O Henry's Full House (1952), a giggling, snivelling crook, played by Richard Widmark, whom Robertson, a cop, has come to arrest, keeps calling him "the beeg man". Robertson, an ex-prize fighter, was indeed "beeg" – tall, well-built and ruggedly handsome, with a gravelly voice. He was tough but fair to men, and courteous to ladies, particularly in the many westerns in which he starred in the 1950s, and in his most famous role, that of special investigator Jim Hardie in the TV series Tales of Wells Fargo.
He was born Dayle Lymoine Robertson, in Harrah, Oklahoma, and attended Oklahoma Military Academy, Claremore, where he was named "all around outstanding athlete". During the second world war, he served with Patton's Third Army,...
In Hollywood, in the days when men were men, Dale Robertson, who has died aged 89, was considered the epitome of masculinity. In the Clarion Call episode from O Henry's Full House (1952), a giggling, snivelling crook, played by Richard Widmark, whom Robertson, a cop, has come to arrest, keeps calling him "the beeg man". Robertson, an ex-prize fighter, was indeed "beeg" – tall, well-built and ruggedly handsome, with a gravelly voice. He was tough but fair to men, and courteous to ladies, particularly in the many westerns in which he starred in the 1950s, and in his most famous role, that of special investigator Jim Hardie in the TV series Tales of Wells Fargo.
He was born Dayle Lymoine Robertson, in Harrah, Oklahoma, and attended Oklahoma Military Academy, Claremore, where he was named "all around outstanding athlete". During the second world war, he served with Patton's Third Army,...
- 2/28/2013
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
The story of Elizabeth Taylor's jewellery was disgustingly decadent, absurd – and thrilling
I speak to you as one who has every biography of Elizabeth Taylor ever published neatly arrayed on her bookshelves and thoroughly read. They are in my Hollywood film section, which also comprises juicy, glittering hardbacks full of juicy, glittering facts – or, far more likely, factoids and outright, fabulous lies – about the lives of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, James Dean, Montgomery Clift and all the glorious rest of them, and the even-more-fabulously-ridiculous autobiographies of gossip-column queens Hedda Hopper and Sheilah Graham. Louella Parsons' is literally in the post.
So (apart from the fact that I will go to my grave regretting that I did not manage to buy one of the six-volume catalogues that accompanied the sale at Christie's last year) I'm afraid I couldn't have been happier last night, luxuriating in Elizabeth Taylor: The...
I speak to you as one who has every biography of Elizabeth Taylor ever published neatly arrayed on her bookshelves and thoroughly read. They are in my Hollywood film section, which also comprises juicy, glittering hardbacks full of juicy, glittering facts – or, far more likely, factoids and outright, fabulous lies – about the lives of Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, James Dean, Montgomery Clift and all the glorious rest of them, and the even-more-fabulously-ridiculous autobiographies of gossip-column queens Hedda Hopper and Sheilah Graham. Louella Parsons' is literally in the post.
So (apart from the fact that I will go to my grave regretting that I did not manage to buy one of the six-volume catalogues that accompanied the sale at Christie's last year) I'm afraid I couldn't have been happier last night, luxuriating in Elizabeth Taylor: The...
- 4/18/2012
- by Lucy Mangan
- The Guardian - Film News
He was a long-time friend and colleague of Charlton Heston who produced of The Omega Man and Soylent Green among others. He came to Hollywood in 1935 and his first success was running the ad campaign for that year’s Mutiny On The Bounty. He had a long and successful career that spanned from the golden age of Hollywood into the ’70s and ’80s
From the Los Angeles Times:
Walter Seltzer, a Hollywood press agent-turned-producer who started out at MGM in the 1930s and made an enduring mark on the industry in the 1980s as a tenacious fundraiser for the Motion Picture and Television Fund, has died. He was 96.
Seltzer died Friday of an age-related illness at the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s retirement home in Woodland Hills, said Jennifer Fagen, a spokeswoman for the fund. His successful ad campaign for MGM’s “Mutiny on the Bounty” (1935) helped him land...
From the Los Angeles Times:
Walter Seltzer, a Hollywood press agent-turned-producer who started out at MGM in the 1930s and made an enduring mark on the industry in the 1980s as a tenacious fundraiser for the Motion Picture and Television Fund, has died. He was 96.
Seltzer died Friday of an age-related illness at the Motion Picture and Television Fund’s retirement home in Woodland Hills, said Jennifer Fagen, a spokeswoman for the fund. His successful ad campaign for MGM’s “Mutiny on the Bounty” (1935) helped him land...
- 8/5/2011
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Italian movie icon Sophia Loren is to be honoured by Oscars bosses in Hollywood on Wednesday.
The actress has flown in from her home in Switzerland for a sold out tribute staged by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and hosted by one of her biggest fans, Billy Crystal.
Loren tells the Los Angeles Times newspaper the gala came as a surprise: "I didn't expect it, really. It's wonderful, because I belong to Italian movies and, generally, we Italians, we don't get these wonderful, great, great honours, even though we deserve it sometimes!
"But America has always accepted me, even in the beginning when I came here for the first time. I was very young and they gave me a wonderful cocktail party. Louella Parsons and Elsa Maxwell and Jayne Mansfield were there. I will never forget those days.
"For me, Hollywood was a fairytale, coming from where I came from, a little town. It was something that I never expected."...
The actress has flown in from her home in Switzerland for a sold out tribute staged by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and hosted by one of her biggest fans, Billy Crystal.
Loren tells the Los Angeles Times newspaper the gala came as a surprise: "I didn't expect it, really. It's wonderful, because I belong to Italian movies and, generally, we Italians, we don't get these wonderful, great, great honours, even though we deserve it sometimes!
"But America has always accepted me, even in the beginning when I came here for the first time. I was very young and they gave me a wonderful cocktail party. Louella Parsons and Elsa Maxwell and Jayne Mansfield were there. I will never forget those days.
"For me, Hollywood was a fairytale, coming from where I came from, a little town. It was something that I never expected."...
- 5/4/2011
- WENN
Sophia Loren has flown in from her home in Switzerland for a sold out tribute staged by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and hosted by one of her biggest fans, Billy Crystal.
Loren tells the Los Angeles Times newspaper the gala came as a surprise: "I didn't expect it, really. It's wonderful, because I belong to Italian movies and, generally, we Italians, we don't get these wonderful, great, great honors, even though we deserve it sometimes!"
"But America has always accepted me, even in the beginning when I came here for the first time. I was very young and they gave me a wonderful cocktail party. Louella Parsons and Elsa Maxwell and Jayne Mansfield were there. I will never forget those days."
"For me, Hollywood was a fairytale, coming from where I came from, a little town. It was something that I never expected."...
Loren tells the Los Angeles Times newspaper the gala came as a surprise: "I didn't expect it, really. It's wonderful, because I belong to Italian movies and, generally, we Italians, we don't get these wonderful, great, great honors, even though we deserve it sometimes!"
"But America has always accepted me, even in the beginning when I came here for the first time. I was very young and they gave me a wonderful cocktail party. Louella Parsons and Elsa Maxwell and Jayne Mansfield were there. I will never forget those days."
"For me, Hollywood was a fairytale, coming from where I came from, a little town. It was something that I never expected."...
- 5/4/2011
- by AceShowbiz.com
- Aceshowbiz
Shrewd film publicist who later achieved success as a producer
A masochistic Hollywood decree insists that press agents must be depicted on screen as loathsome toadying creatures, and movie moguls as vulgar, mercenary despots. Walter Seltzer, who has died aged 96, was both a press agent and a producer, but he failed to conform to either of the self-perpetuating stereotypes. As a press agent he was persuasive rather than pushy; as a producer, he believed in consensus decision-making.
Undoubtedly his greatest achievement as a press agent was in his promotion of Marty (1955), a gentle, small-scale study of the mundane with no star names. Seltzer believed so much in the Harold Hecht/Burt Lancaster production that the promotional campaign for the film was more expensive than the film itself: $400,000 compared to $343,000. Among Seltzer's tactics was his sending prints of the film to members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,...
A masochistic Hollywood decree insists that press agents must be depicted on screen as loathsome toadying creatures, and movie moguls as vulgar, mercenary despots. Walter Seltzer, who has died aged 96, was both a press agent and a producer, but he failed to conform to either of the self-perpetuating stereotypes. As a press agent he was persuasive rather than pushy; as a producer, he believed in consensus decision-making.
Undoubtedly his greatest achievement as a press agent was in his promotion of Marty (1955), a gentle, small-scale study of the mundane with no star names. Seltzer believed so much in the Harold Hecht/Burt Lancaster production that the promotional campaign for the film was more expensive than the film itself: $400,000 compared to $343,000. Among Seltzer's tactics was his sending prints of the film to members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,...
- 4/5/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Philip French remembers the child star turned Oscar-winning actress, who was as celebrated as much for her tempestuous relationships as her movies
For people like myself, born in Britain in the inter-war years and growing up during the second world war, Elizabeth Taylor will always be thought of as the youngest of four British evacuees who brought their immaculate English accents to Hollywood and became an essential part of a corner of Tinseltown that was forever England. She and Peter Lawford were transported across the Atlantic by their parents as war clouds gathered over Europe and were put under contract by MGM in the early 1940s. Roddy McDowall followed when bombs began to fall on Britain, as did Angela Lansbury who was also signed by MGM. McDowall was the first to attain stardom, playing the Welsh miner's son in How Green Was My Valley and then appearing in MGM's children's classic,...
For people like myself, born in Britain in the inter-war years and growing up during the second world war, Elizabeth Taylor will always be thought of as the youngest of four British evacuees who brought their immaculate English accents to Hollywood and became an essential part of a corner of Tinseltown that was forever England. She and Peter Lawford were transported across the Atlantic by their parents as war clouds gathered over Europe and were put under contract by MGM in the early 1940s. Roddy McDowall followed when bombs began to fall on Britain, as did Angela Lansbury who was also signed by MGM. McDowall was the first to attain stardom, playing the Welsh miner's son in How Green Was My Valley and then appearing in MGM's children's classic,...
- 3/27/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Director Peter Bogdanovich.
Interviewing Peter Bogdanovich for the April 2002 issue of Venice Magazine was a thrill for me. Like Francis Coppola, John Frankenheimer, and William Friedkin before him, Bogdanovich was one of those filmmakers whose one-sheets hung on my bedroom walls growing up. Plus the fact that he himself had a renowned career as a film historian and interviewer of his own childhood heroes, such as John Ford, Howard Hawks, Orson Welles, and dozens of others, made our talk a real feast.
Not long after the article was printed, I received a letter with a New York City postmark. The note enclosed said simply: “Dear Alex, thanks for doing your homework so well, and thanks for the good vibes. All the best to you of love and luck, Peter Bogdanovich.”
Our chat remains one of my favorites during my 15 year tenure as a film writer. --A.S.
Peter Bogdanovich’S...
Interviewing Peter Bogdanovich for the April 2002 issue of Venice Magazine was a thrill for me. Like Francis Coppola, John Frankenheimer, and William Friedkin before him, Bogdanovich was one of those filmmakers whose one-sheets hung on my bedroom walls growing up. Plus the fact that he himself had a renowned career as a film historian and interviewer of his own childhood heroes, such as John Ford, Howard Hawks, Orson Welles, and dozens of others, made our talk a real feast.
Not long after the article was printed, I received a letter with a New York City postmark. The note enclosed said simply: “Dear Alex, thanks for doing your homework so well, and thanks for the good vibes. All the best to you of love and luck, Peter Bogdanovich.”
Our chat remains one of my favorites during my 15 year tenure as a film writer. --A.S.
Peter Bogdanovich’S...
- 5/28/2010
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
The exhibition "Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine: A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers" will be held from April 29 to July 30 at USC’s Doheny Memorial Library’s David L. Wolper Center south of downtown Los Angeles. According to the USC Libraries’ press release, "on display will be hundreds of fan magazines and motion picture memorabilia dating back to the early years of Hollywood when movie buffs would read such publications as Movie Picture Classic, Photoplay, or Screenland to learn the latest information on the biggest stars of the day." Among the archives represented in the exhibition are those from the Anthony Slide, Norma Shearer, Irene Dunne, Frank Sinatra, Louella Parsons, Constance McCormick, and George Burns and Gracie [...]...
- 5/3/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
By Robert W. Welkos
The life of a Hollywood blogger can be exciting.
There are red-carpet premieres to attend. Oscar races to handicap. Film festivals in far-off locales to visit. Movie stars and cutting-edge directors to interview. And throughout the day, you have the freedom to voice your opinion on the Internet and people actually seem to care about what you think.
But being a Hollywood blogger also takes a personal toll.
“I consider it a 24-hour job,” said Sasha Stone of Awards Daily.
“Some day they’ll find me lying on the floor or dying at my desk. I believe in dying at my desk,” said Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere.
“It’s almost like vaudeville. For very little pay, you have to go out and give four or five performances a day and deal with the peanut gallery, the comments section, people barking back at you,” said Tom O’Neil of Gold Derby.
The life of a Hollywood blogger can be exciting.
There are red-carpet premieres to attend. Oscar races to handicap. Film festivals in far-off locales to visit. Movie stars and cutting-edge directors to interview. And throughout the day, you have the freedom to voice your opinion on the Internet and people actually seem to care about what you think.
But being a Hollywood blogger also takes a personal toll.
“I consider it a 24-hour job,” said Sasha Stone of Awards Daily.
“Some day they’ll find me lying on the floor or dying at my desk. I believe in dying at my desk,” said Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere.
“It’s almost like vaudeville. For very little pay, you have to go out and give four or five performances a day and deal with the peanut gallery, the comments section, people barking back at you,” said Tom O’Neil of Gold Derby.
- 4/28/2010
- by Robert W. Welkos
- Hollywoodnews.com
Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" is about one man from many perspectives. As a reporter travels the country in search of the meaning of Charles Foster Kane's last words, he hears stories about the man from wives, co-workers, friends, and guardians, all of whom see Kane's life differently. In the trailer, Welles describes the many dimensions of his character in the narration: "Kane is a hero, and a scoundrel, a no account and a swell guy. A great lover, a great American citizen and a dirty dog."
Certainly, Welles believed that one man could encompass all of these dissimilar traits. And in recent years, enough actors have portrayed enough variations of Welles himself to suggest that the acting/directing wunderkind, like Kane, was just as complex an individual. Some films have portrayed him as a hero, others as a scoundrel. Some, like Richard Linklater's new film "Me and Orson Welles,...
Certainly, Welles believed that one man could encompass all of these dissimilar traits. And in recent years, enough actors have portrayed enough variations of Welles himself to suggest that the acting/directing wunderkind, like Kane, was just as complex an individual. Some films have portrayed him as a hero, others as a scoundrel. Some, like Richard Linklater's new film "Me and Orson Welles,...
- 11/26/2009
- by Matt Singer
- ifc.com
Illustration by Tim Sheaffer. At the London premiere of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Ms. Fox (who really sets off my wow-meter, let me tell you) denied being romantically involved with Robert Pattinson. A few nights later, she supped with co-star Shia ‘Don’t Call Me Sleepy’ Labeouf at Nobu in Manhattan, fueling intense speculation about her love life. Boy oh boy! This is the oldest trick in the Hollywood book. I feel like I’m back in the days of Hy Gardner, Hedda Hopper, and Louella Parsons! This is how the old studio bosses used to do it. You promote a picture by sending your leading lady out on a “date.” You have her deny something that wasn’t even a rumor to begin with—making sure that the thing she is denying involves another rising star. And you make double extra certain that the tabloids are there to drink it all in.
- 6/29/2009
- Vanity Fair
A book detailing the alleged secret life of legendary Hollywood actor Humphrey Bogart is causing controversy in Hollywood. The tome The Secret Life Of Humphrey Bogart, penned by scribe Darwin Porter is based on a manuscript full of incredible gossip written by the Casablanca star's friend - actor Kenneth Mackenna. In the book, Porter alleges that Bogart took on an undercover role for tycoon Howard Hughes, after being frightened that the mogul knew too much about his philandering. Bogey was afraid Hughes would tell all to his then-wife Mary Philips. According to Porter, Bogart procured male escorts for the reportedly bisexual businessman, took Jean Harlow to the abortion clinic after Hughes got her pregnant and slept with gossip queen Louella Parsons in order to get good press. However, wisely Porter stops the book in 1931 - long before his marriage to the Lauren Bacall. Although he does detail Bogart's affairs with Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis and a threesome between Bogey, his first wife Helen Menken and Tallulah Bankhead. Porter admits, "I would hate to run into Lauren Bacall."...
- 4/23/2003
- WENN
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